Suicide rate among youth on the rise in Iraq
Suicide has been on the rise among Iraqi youth, who face a pandemic, high unemployment and a volatile political situation.
The Baghdad Police Directorate rescued an 18-year-old girl who was trying to commit suicide at Al-Jadriya Bridge in Baghdad on Sept. 26. The directorate has rescued dozens of others in similar situations.
On Sept. 23, a young man in the oil-rich Al-Basra province, which suffers from negligence and bad services, committed suicide under “vague circumstances.” A week earlier, a 16-year-old boy hanged himself in a shop in Baghdad.
Suicides in Iraq have not been limited to one region. On Sept. 2, the police in Kirkuk province in northern Iraq saved a young man who tried to jump off of a residential building.
Iraqi youths face numerous problems amid systemic political failure that prevents them from reaching their goals. They resort to suicide, and this is becoming a phenomenon rather than a matter of limited cases threatening Iraqi society for the first time.
